The French is a solid and safe defence which you will certainly
meet and may like to play yourself as a reply to 1. e4. In these
notes I will give a quick run-down on the main variations of the
French, and give an example line for each variation so you can get
some idea of how to play for each side.

Variations I recommend for White include the
Alekhin-Chatard Attack and the Alekhin Gambit against the
Winawer. Black's best line is certainly the Winawer, but there are
safer alternatives like the Classical or Burn Variations. The
Tarrasch is a line for later on in your chess life, in my
opinion.

Black takes a risky decision - to attack White's Knight but with
the important dark-squared bishop. White has the main try 4. e5 but
also some ways of avoiding these critical lines, including the
gambit lines 4. Nge2 and 4. a3, and the Winawer Exchange 4. exd5.

This is the critical position in the Winawer. Black has given up
the important dark-sqaured bishop to weaken White's pawns which can
be attacked down the c-file. Black will try to block the centre to
slow up any White attack.

Chess Quotes

"Chess is a contest between two men in which there is considerable ego-involvement. In some way it certainly touches upon the conflicts surrounding aggression, homosexuality, masturbation and narcissism which become particularly prominent in the anal-phallic phases of development. From the standpoint of id psychology, Jones' observations can therefore be confirmed, even enlarged upon. Genetically, chess is more often than not taught to the boy by his father, or a father-substitute, and thus becomes a means of working out the son-father rivalry."

So now you know... It's easy to be dismissive of this, but if you don't think there's anything in it, and are not easily offended, then I invite you to look at a few statements quoted in Dominic Lawson's The Inner Game. The most obvious caution against a psychodynamic interpretation of chess is that Short's anal rape fantasies here seem anything but "unconscious" or "repressed"!